I hope this look ahead will help everyone be ready for all the fun events coming up!

We had our first whole school morning assemble on Friday. It was great fun! Our class had several birthdays recognized. On that note, I forgot to address birthdays in our class. If you would like to bring in some sort of treats for the class I have found that donuts are the easiest and most fun. They are a perfect morning snack, easy to transport, not messy and the kids all love them. This is just my suggestion, if you want to send in a birthday treat for the class on your child's birthday, just shoot me an email and let me know what the plan is in advance. Thanks!

Our Melody was recognized at the assembly by having her SWAG ticket (tickets the kids earn all week for great behavior) out of the school wide basket. Woo! Hoo! Way to represent!

The kids have been doing a great job of behaving in Fine Arts. They sorta fell apart during our first Shine Time though. Everyday, please take a minute to remind them how important their behavior is when they leave our classroom. I reward them handsomely for showing the whole school just how amazing and special our class is. Your partnership on this will help. Thanks!

I think some of the "falling apart" during Shine Time had to do with the crazy bee and Mrs. McGhee recess incident. If you haven't heard a giant bumble bee crawled up my back and into the back of my hair, just above the nape of your neck. It became tangled in my curls and began stinging me repeatedly while I tried to get it out. Mrs. Rabadeux came running to help me and had to whack at it with sunglasses until it finally fell out of my hair. The adrenalin was pumping and the class and I struggled to settle back down that afternoon. I am fine. I am thinking of launching a children's book series titled "What's in Mrs. McGhee's hair." Ha!

We had our very first mystery reader this week! Mr. Warriner came and delighted us with the crazy adventures of Frog and Toad. Thank you for taking time out of your work and busy life to share with the class. We loved it!

Look for VERY important paperwork coming home about our Texas Motor Speedway reading contest. We are one of 11 schools in the metroplex that are particitpating in this program. The kids will come home with a reading log that you will need to fill out for them and send in at the designated dates. Here are my goals: 1) to be the class out of all 11 schools that reads the most 2) to have the student out of all 11 schools that reads the most and 3) to help OSE be the school out of all 11 schools that reads the most. In May, we will be going back to the Speeday and will have a big Championship Awards ceremony. The video of last year's ceremony was amazing. So start you engines and READ!!!

I hope everyone has enjoyed the 3 day weekend. Mine has been great! My mother in law will turn 70 Sept. 13 so we got her a Yorkie puppy this weekend. We had an awesome family game night that I was the champion of. Our church had a navy seal speak and he was amazing. We tried out the new Moviehouse Eatery with a group on. And...drum roll please, we are going to meet my eldest daughter's serious boyfriend's parents tonight for a bbq at their house. Fun times!

Take Care!

April McGhee

WHAT WE'VE BEEN LEARNING

Science-We have been working on some scientific language, tools and rules. We have placed 5 gummy bears in different types of solutions and we are observing, measuring, asking questions and drawing conclusions.

Social Studies-We added some new character building words to our list. We now know about truthfulness, equality, and justice. The kids made posters showing how everyone being treated the same may not be fair. Everyone's needs being met in different ways is more equitable. I had them pretend they each had an injury some where on their bodies. I called them up and had them share their fake injury. I then put a band aid on the back of their hands. This was to show how a one size fits all mentality benefits almost no one. We talked about how we all have different strengths and weaknesses. Some of us need extra time and teachers to help us with parts of our school work. Some of us need private teachers to help us with the arts. Some of us need a coach to help us with sports. Etc.

Math-We completed our first topic about adding in different ways. We learned how to balance an equation by using my big math scale. (ex: 3+5=4+4) They took their first math test on Friday. We learned to play many games like War, plus 1 and plus 2 bingo, and a doubling graph game. We will begin subtraction this week.

Language Arts-The kids have been practicing their read to self and read with a partner. They have now learned how to read in a small group and complete a task (this week was sequencing events) We began writing in our writing journals. We focused on short vowels and how they usully fall between 2 consonants (ex: cat, forget). We read our first story in our reader Henry and Mudge. They took their first comprehension test over that story. This week we will be doing the ea sound as in break, and when and how to use ck.